To Know You Better Than Minutes Before
by Chyme for the Rhyme
Summary: Max struggles with a 'coming out' revelation from Ben. Verdona helps. And also laughs at him. A lot.
Shock is something Max knows, has experience with. He has felt it flood his mind a million times, feeding his adrenalin glands with shards of panic, underneath the rumble of a mind struggling to piece itself back together, to escape the coldness of immobilising numbness.

But this, he has no room for.

'Pardon?' he asks stupidly.

And his grandson, his sweet, go-getter grandson, looks up him, uncertainty written on his face.

'I said, me and Rook are dating and I kinda wanted you to know...no, we thought you should know, since, you know, you're Rook's boss.'

He scratches the back of his head and Max watches, feeling a whiff of nostalgia as he remembers reaching inside an oversized fish tank to run his hand over that same scalp when it was barely ten hours old. Even then, there had been thin filaments of brown under his fingers, sparse and bristly, like a badly-made brush, though not enough to stir the air – but still hair all the same.

Ben had laughed, Max remembers suddenly, when he had first been told the story, inquiring with a cheeky grin, whether Gwen had been bald in comparison. She had been, but that hadn't been the point, Max informed him firmly, even if Ben had howled with laughter at the confirmation.

'...And I kinda thought you should be one of the first to know as well. Mom and Dad are cool and everything, I mean they like Rook fine...' Ben grimaces '...sometimes a little _too_ much. But I dunno if they would really get it. They could handle Ester, but then she was half-human, and looked it too! And Rook...isn't, or I guess, doesn't.' He looks at Max hopefully. 'But you're like an expert on human and alien relationships! I mean, Grandma's an alien! And I thought, maybe you could be there when I tell them, help soften the blow? Not that I think they'll freak out or anything...' He pauses. 'Grandpa?'

The uncertainty is back on his face and it tugs on Max's heart like a string.

'Sure kiddo,' he says, feeling his lips move, guided by this impulse to reassure instead of hurt. 'I'll be there.'

But still he sweats as Ben smiles, his facial expression moulding into something alien as though it is now rubber that clings to his muscles rather than skin.

'When did all this begin? I didn't know you and Rook were like _that_.'

Because Ben is right; he is an expert on alien and human romances. He's seen more than a few in his time, some within his own family. But he's never seen one where both the participants were the same gender. A few where the alien in question had no gender, at least not by Earth standards, but never...

Max cringes, wondering if perhaps there have been some same-sex couples of that variety under his nose throughout the years and he's simply never noticed because they haven't stepped forward. He's lived through decades where such a thing would be seen as horrific, after all, even without the alien component entering into the equation. Even now, not everybody will be as welcoming.

It's just...he never thought that Ben would be...and he's never even noticed that Ben and Rook had any sort of interaction that would make them...

Ben grins, bounces on his toes. 'C'mon Grandpa, don't kiss and tell, right? It's kinda creepy that you wanna know.' Then he hesitates, a rare trace of thoughtfulness entering his eyes. 'It's not like it was with Julie or Ester, anyway. It was more gradual than that. I didn't suddenly wake up and want a dude, you know?'

No, Max doesn't know. He doesn't know at all.

* * *

It's stupid, but there's only one person he can really talk to about this. He stares up, at the sky through the glass-plated window of his son's house and tries to drown out Sandra gushing over Rook, and Carl's cautious questions. It's just as well, for if he averts his eyes from the stars he'll have to see the quick, anxious glances the Revonnahgander Plumber will throw him, all as Ben squeezes his arm or leans a little too close to his shoulder.

He doesn't like the idea that enough of his true thoughts have bled through into this familial atmosphere for Rook to pick up on them, although it does explain why Ben's laying on the cutesy couple routine. He has always had the habit of playfully stirring the waters the instance that he detects his Grandpa's disapproval against something he really, really wants.

Max nurses his glass of orange juice in his hand and wishes it were wine instead.

* * *

Afterwards, in bed, just as he's dozing off, he feels more than hears or sees a flash that lights up the sky. He opens his eyes and sees that no, it is not light staining his window, it is simply an Anodite playing the role of night-light against his ceiling,

'Verdona,' he says, marvelling at how grouchy his voice sounds. 'Come down from there. You look ridiculous.'

She rolls her eyes, or at least he thinks she rolls her eyes. It's hard to tell when they stare down at him in all their pupil-less glory.

'Aw,' she says, uncoiling herself from the ceiling like a cat, her fingers brushing against the darkened bulb in his lampshade as she glides down. 'You being old is no fun.'

He grunts. 'My neck is killing me these days. I don't feel like knocking a few vertebrae loose just to look at you.'

'Like I said: no fun.'

She gives him that little amoral smirk that has always scared him as she settles down on his lap, the thick slide of the duvet being the only thing that separates them from each other. Max stares down at the rounded tuck of creases it throws up against her slender legs and closes his eyes.

She bursts out laughing. 'But not too old to have lost your sex drive, you old fox! Perhaps there's hope for you yet. I don't particularly relish the idea of your spark going out.'

Max smiles despite himself. 'Oh, there's still some juice left in me left. I'm not giving up that easily.' Then he frowns, realising that his face is starting to feel like it belongs to him again. 'What are you doing here, anyway?'

She smiles. 'I felt you. Your distress was like a beacon for me.'

He groans. 'Verdona...'

'No, no,' she says airily, 'I'm always willing to listen to family. Tell me what the problem is.'

And he does.

She laughs, long and hard. Hard enough for him to grimly think of Ben and decide that his grandson's sense of humour streams straight from hers.

'Oh how delightful!' she says, slapping her hands together with glee. 'And how very, very adventurous of Benjamin! I thought for sure he would end up pairing off with some dull human girl, but no, it seems there's a bit more of me in him than I'd realised!'

Of course, Max thinks, his heart sinking down under the sheets. Of course, she would make this all about her. Yet another characteristic that she seems to have left Ben with.

'Verdona, please.'

She sighs. 'Oh, fine.' Then she looks at him sharply. 'And what, exactly is your problem with it, Max? I know you. You've never been a bigot. And you've always encouraged the idea of love between people, no matter their species.'

'It's just...' he's fumbling, he knows, but it seems important somehow, that he finds a way to explain himself. 'I just know Ben. I always have. I know he 's smarter than he lets on and that he could've have done better in school; I know he has a strange and honestly quite baffling addiction to chilli fries; I know that he got his first Sumo Slammers action figure on his eighth birthday and he's never stopped collecting them since. I know that he's not a fan of romance but he's quite content to listen to other people's love stories and perhaps, deep down, he wants one for himself. But I just never saw that he would choose to be a part of one that...

'..didn't involve a girl?' Verdona asks quietly.

Max looks at her and realises from the wide, soft shape of her eyes and the way her brow curves outwards instead of pressing down, that she is not angry with him. Only sad.

'Ah, human emotions are so complicated,' she says, in a tone implying that it is _he_ who is the difficult one out of the two of them, when really it has always been _her_. 'You look at him and worry that you suddenly see a stranger. And you wonder, what else do you not know if he has managed to hide something as big as this from you? He no longer fits your perception of him. And instead of allowing it to shift and change, to grow, you worry that you have made a mistake, too rigid in your belief that you have gotten your grandson wrong. When really, you should realise that your were simply missing the information you needed to fill in a gap in your knowledge that you didn't realise was there.' She smiles and shakes her head fondly. 'You really have gotten old Max! When did you start to believe you understood everything there was to know about an individual?'

He looks at her and the purple of her limbs and sees the long sweep of her glowing hair waver, falling apart into tatters, into streaks that glow, as the tears start to form in his eyes.

'Ever since I watched him grow up,' he says, his voice rough with an old wound he never knew was there. But he can feel it, the fear, the panic, dripping through. 'From the moment I touched him, I promised I would always be there, that I would always love him, not matter what. And now...'

'And now you are growing, re-adjusting,' says Verdona quietly, the watery shape of her leaning forward. Her arms, now limpid puddles to Max's vision, wrap round his own bulky mass and he leans forward, hair grazing her round cheek. He marvels at how cool she feels beneath his wrinkles, like a small dwarf star, the faint trace of ozone drifting up into his nose. She feels like the softest metal imaginable. 'I have heard that is hard for the old to change, especially in humans. Sometimes impossible. But you can prove those naysayers wrong, can't you Max?'

He nods sleepily into her shoulder.

* * *

Ben blinks. 'Hey Grandma.'

She squeals, much like the excited teenage girl she really isn't, and wraps her arms round his shoulders. 'Oh, I'm so excited for you, kiddo! Way to break the status quo!'

To her side, from where Rook has been watching warily, the Revonnahgander suddenly frowns. 'Ben and I are not causing any political upheaval by being together,' he says, looking awfully confused.

'Yeah,' mutters Ben, sounding a little winded as his cheek is shoved into his grandmother's dark shoulder, 'but wait til the media gets hold of it. There'll be some 'upheaval' then.'

Rook shudders.

'Oh, and as for you...' Verdona promptly drops Ben from her arms, drifting straight into Rook's personal space to tug at his cheek. 'My, yes, you are a handsome one, aren't you! Ben's done well.'

'...Thuank yoo,' Rook attempts to say as his mouth is stretched to the side. He glances to his left, panic clouding his gaze slightly.

Verdona snorts and lets go. 'Oh relax. I'm not here to mutilate you. And Max isn't going to fire you for defiling his precious grandson.'

Max has to stifle the spike of humour he feels in his gut as Rook looks over to Ben and mouths 'defiling' in some kind of horrified fascination. Only to look a bit put out as Ben smirks.

'Grandma, how to you know I'm not the one doing the 'defiling?'

Verdona cackles and curls her legs up into the air so that she can slap her knees. Always the heart and soul of the party, Max thinks fondly, even when there's no cause for it.

'Oh, good one, Ben! It's nice to see someone's inherited my razor sharp wit!'

Rook, meanwhile, just looks terribly offended as Max claps him on the shoulder.

'Trust me,' he informs the disturbed-looking Revonnahgander, 'it only gets worse with age.'

Rook throws him such a look of absolute betrayal that Max can't help it; he bursts out laughing too.

* * *

'I'm sorry,' he tells Ben later. 'I think I've hurt you without meaning too. I don't think I reacted quite the way you wanted me too, or even the way I should have.'

Ben smiles privately. 'Don't worry about it,' he says gently. 'You're my Grandpa; I knew you'd come round eventually.'

Max stares at him. His grandson is an appalling mixture of maturity bundled up under a cover of childishness sometimes.

'Besides,' Ben continues, in the same airy tone Verdona uses, 'it was funny to see you stagger round with a 'deer-in-the-headlights' look on your face, even if it did give Rook a few coronaries.'

Yeah. _Sometimes._

Max sighs. 'You're alright, though? This is what you want?'

Ben glances out, over to where Verdona is now wearing a slightly troubled look as Rook quizs her on how it's possible for Anodite heritage to manifest itself in descendants who have to contend with the mess of DNA polluting the flow of mana inside.

'Yeah,' he says, smiling at the enthusiasm on Rook's face. 'I think I'm good.'

And so, Max realises gradually, is he.


End file.
